The Unquiet Dead
by tkelparis
Summary: Jenny's random joke possibly triggered the TARDIS to take them to the Victorian Era. The historical aspects – and the clothes – are amazing, but they weren't expecting to actually see Charles Dickens surrounded by ghosts. At Christmas. Written and posted for cassikat's birthday in 2013.
1. New Job, New Journey - Into Chaos

**Title**: The Noble Girl – The Unquiet Dead

**Rating**: T

**Author**: tkel_paris

**Summary**: Jenny's random joke possibly triggered the TARDIS to take them to the Victorian Era. The historical aspects – and the clothes – are amazing, but they weren't expecting to actually see Charles Dickens surrounded by ghosts. At Christmas. Written and posted for cassikat's birthday.

**Disclaimer**: Hugely AU. So no, I own nothing. Also, involves racism and other nasty things.

**Dedication**: cassikat, of course. Happy birthday, my friend! :D And tardis-mole and bas_math_girl, for beta-reading.

**Author's Note**: This idea was floating around in my head because I thought that a certain character looked more like another character than the one who was her (sole) parent in canon. And I know cassikat wanted a Nine story without Rose. So we both get our wish here! :D

Everyone has had the idea of taking a character and putting them into a different family situation. So, take one character from Who, transform the circumstances of her birth into something normal (or as normal as one can get in DW), and give her a different family. What do you get? Possibly this story. If you eliminate one other character...

Also, working on this fic made me realize how sheltered the companions who were – well, not of a "different race" appears to be the term even though I don't like using it – were. As if Mickey didn't have enough to deal with in canon; being ignored by his girlfriend for one, the Press that denied his place as the first Black companion, being called an Idiot when he was only playing the fool (which actually makes two things), then he chose to escape the girlfriend by going to a world that had to be at least as intolerant as the one he fled from, and who knows what he dealt with while Rose tried to work that Cannon. Here, I have faced the ethnicity issue head on and... well, read on. You may want a pillow to punch at times, as I have kept it true to the era in which this episode was set. Fair warning.

And as always, please review first with the idea that this was New Who airing for the first time. Then compare. :D

**The Noble Girl: The Unquiet Dead**

**Started June 8, 2012**

**Finished August 7, 2013**

**Chapter 1: New Job, New Journey – Into Chaos**

"I've got to go to the latest job now! Is that alien of yours going to show his face anytime soon?!"

Jenny sighed, running a hand through her hair and wanting to tear some strands out as she followed her mother out to her car, with Sylvia on their heels. "I've been expecting him for days now, Mum! I don't know why he hasn't come! Not after all the effort he took to convince me and Mickey to travel with him."

Sylvia groaned. "It's hard enough to believe that this... alien is actually paying you and Mickey. Calling you his assistants, you said?"

"Yeah. And you've both seen my bank balance. Equivalent of a month's wages from the shop added within days of meeting the Doctor. I saw him making a change to his account so we're paid weekly here on Earth, no matter how little or how much time passes for us while travelling through time and space."

"You didn't come home last time until your mum was due home!" Sylvia snapped. "That was three weeks later! And now it's been almost two more since you came home!"

Donna laughed. "Time and space. I can't get over the idea of you being a space and time traveller. My daughter! You're living your dream of being an explorer!"

She sounded wistful, which was a huge change from when she first heard about it. Her only child, exploring time and space with some alien? Never mind that Mickey was there, it seemed too dangerous! But it seemed that Donna's wishes for herself ran along those same lines. If she couldn't travel like she wanted to, she wasn't going to stop her child from doing it.

Of course, her own horror and tirade had stopped when she realized how like her mother she sounded. Besides, her daughter was more than good enough for the United Kingdom Space Agency, wasn't she? She could handle anything. Which was sometimes a scary thought.

"Oh, don't you go thinking about going with her!" Sylvia exclaimed. "You have a business, lady!"

Jenny grimaced. Her gran using the word 'lady' was never a good sign. More like belittling.

"Oh, please!" Donna's eyes flashed at her. "If you must know, I've no intention of leaving my business behind. I want to make sure Gramps is comfortable in his own home, with the mortgage paid off, and has some extra for however long he's got. And my daughter is too practical not to think of these things."

Jenny had to restrain her expression. She knew she wasn't entirely practical. (As if running off, even if her boyfriend went with her, with a complete stranger, and then telling her family he was an alien from space and she'd travelled across time and space, was practical? Or even believable? Her mother had thrown that at her early on, making her wonder how much everyone other than her great-grandy truly trusted her about this.) It was a learned behaviour from her mother, but it had served her well. She couldn't understand where she got the wild ideas and crazy thoughts, so she supposed she needed the reminders about life.

Donna's phone chimed. She groaned. "I have to go. You tell that Doctor that I'd better meet him sometime soon! I don't like the idea of not even having the chance to meet the flipping person who takes my only child away from me."

Mickey pulled up in his car as Jenny nodded. "He seems to think he'll like you. He sounded delighted to know that you're ginger."

She narrowed her eyes. "Nutter." She opened her car door and carefully put her bags inside. "Take care, sweetheart. Hello, Mickey!"

The young man waved, carrying a backpack out of the car. They all watched Donna drive away moments later to the latest booking of her skills.

Sylvia sighed, folding her arms. "If that dratted alien can travel through time, why can't he arrange to meet your mum?"

Jenny shrugged. "Believe me, I'll make sure that introduction happens. His ship seems to like me, so I bet I can talk her into ensuring that he doesn't get cold feet." She frowned thoughtfully. "Not that I imagine he would – he almost acted like he has a thing for gingers."

Mickey coughed.

Before Sylvia could do more than drop her mouth in shock, they heard the engines churning and wheezing. The TARDIS appeared on the pavement, and seconds later the Doctor emerged, frowning.

Sylvia found her voice. "Where the hell have you been?! You said you'd come back to meet Jenny's mum, and you just missed her!"

He glared at her. "It wasn't my fault. I asked my ship to help me get here in time, but she seemed to encounter a few time eddies."

"What?" Sylvia was unimpressed.

"Time eddies," the Doctor repeated. "Like a sea-faring ship hitting unexpectedly rough weather. It happens sometimes, throws my aim off. I'm also the only pilot, and TARDISes are meant to have six pilots."

Jenny found a grin growing. A challenge! "May we learn?"

The Doctor was positive his eyes had never tried to leave his head before. He'd thought those cartoons with the wild bulging eyes were exaggerating what a person could feel. Now he knew it wasn't as far off the mark as he'd thought. "It's highly complicated," he evaded. "I'm not sure your human brains could handle that kind of knowledge."

Mickey snorted. "Telling my woman she can't do something means she'll want to do it anyway."

Sylvia exhaled tightly. "That trick never worked when she was a kid, Doctor. It still doesn't. She has to at least try to make it work."

The Doctor folded his arms and thought about alternative reasons to convince his young companion that she was asking too much. "Jenny, it's nothing like driving a car. And you're too young to do that anyway!"

"I can see that. Are you so frightened by the thought of someone else touching your precious controls that you're feeling threatened? Why not at least see if we can help ease your burden."

He blinked. "We?"

"Well," Jenny explained patiently, "you said six people are ideal. You have two companions, right? Why not see if Mickey and I can help you by learning to handle two stations at a time? You'd like that challenge, wouldn't you, Mickey?"

The young man looked intrigued. "It'd be a good challenge, wouldn't it? Yeah, I think I would like to learn."

The Doctor flinched. Two humans handling the controls? But then he felt the TARDIS reach out to him.

Jenny displayed her best pout. "Please, just let us try to learn?"

Between the ship's sounds in his head and that precious silent pleading, the Doctor visibly melted. "I don't know why, but the Old Girl seems to think you can learn and even wants you to learn. She's never trusted anyone this much, and she can't explain it any more than I can. Or won't. Fine. We'll start lessons as soon as we're in the Vortex."

Jenny punched her fists into the air. "Yes!" She threw her arms around Mickey, who was also beaming. Even Sylvia had to laugh over her grandchild's enthusiasm.

The Doctor hoped his ship knew what she was doing.

/=/=/=/

"Now," the Doctor began, pointing at the Controls, "push that button to keep the forward motion stablised."

Mickey pressed it, and looked at the lever he was keeping stable. So far it seems pretty simple, he thought. He smiled as he saw Jenny's eyes shining as she learned more.

"Okay, so that's the basics of this console," Jenny noted. "What about-?"

The TARDIS lurched suddenly. All three had to hold on tight. "What's what, a time eddy?!" shouted Mickey.

The Doctor's eyes went wide. "Massive disturbance! We'll need to land, and it'll be soon!"

Two human pairs of eyes managed to beat his for imitating dinner plates as the Control Room sounded more like a train wreck waiting to happen.

/=/=/=/

A bald man lit one of the the gas lamps inside a dark room, enhancing the candle-lit glow. Behind him a younger man walked up to the coffin, which was flanked with dried white roses and Old World Poppies, with large sprigs of rosemary all over the room to mask the smells of death. He was immune to the details of his Chapel of Rest, especially as he blew out the stick and dampened the remaining flames with his fingers. He turned and spoke to his client. "Sneed and Company offer their sincerest condolences, sir, in this most trying hour." His accent was thick, of the area he practiced in.

The younger man stood in shock. The era did not permit much showing of emotion, but his were nearly at the surface. "Grandmamma had a good innings, Mister Sneed. She was so full of life. I can't believe she's gone." His accent was nothing like the elderly man's. It sounded more refined, fitting with his garments.

"Not gone, Mister Redpath, sir. Merely sleeping."

Mr. Redpath reflected a moment on that as he looked at Mr. Sneed and tried to make his voice work. "May I have a moment?"

"Yes, of course. I shall be in the next room, should you require anything." With that Mr. Sneed walked away.

Mr. Redpath gazed down the corpse of his grandmother, leaning with his hands resting a distance apart on the coffin. He smiled as he remembered everything she had taught him and all the memories that were attached to her. As Mr. Sneed closed the door, Mr. Redpath closed his eyes.

The grandmother's face suddenly turned blue for a moment. It repeated, going in and out as a blue gas fluttered suddenly about her face.

Then her eyes opened. She grabbed her relative by the throat and knocked over a vase.

The crash and sounds of gagging brought Sneed back in, and he silently groaned. "Oh, no. No." He hurriedly freed the suddenly lifeless Redpath from the woman's grasp. He dimly noted that it sounded like she had broken Redpath's neck. He forced her down and tried to put the coffin lid on. "Gwyneth! Get down here now! We've got another one!"

Unfortunately, the vigorous corpse pushed the lid off, knocking Sneed out, and kicked her way out of the coffin side.

Soon she glided out of the room and was walking down the otherwise empty snow-covered street, groaning. Blue vapour escaped from her screaming mouth.

**(Opening Credits:**

**Christoper Eccelston**

**Georgia Moffet**

**Noel Clarke**

**DOCTOR WHO**

"**The Unquiet Dead"**

**based on the episode by Mark Gatiss)**


	2. How Good Is His Driving?

**CHAPTER TWO – How Good Is His Driving?**

Mayhem was the polite word for what was happening. The whole ship was shaking and alarms went off all over. Even beeping ones. Smoke seeped from the Controls. "Hold that one down!" the Doctor shouted at Mickey.

Mickey would've glared at the Doctor if he dared to look away from the levers he was handling. "I'm _holding_ this one down!"

"Well, hold them _both_ down!"

"Oi!" Jenny shouted over the noise. "Just get us safely somewhere!"

The Doctor spared a frown at her. "Oi! I promised you a time machine and that's what you're getting. Now, you've seen the future – let's have a look at the past." He glanced at the controls, thinking quickly. "1860. How does 1860 sound?"

"Fine by me," Jenny answered snappishly.

Mickey blinked. "What happened in 1860?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know, let's find out. Hold on, here we go!" He moved over to handle the lever, and the TARDIS went screeching through the time vortex. The two humans flinched over the noise.

/=/=/=/

Sneed patted his face with a cloth, trying to get his composure back while standing in the small room. "Gwyneth! Where are you, girl? Gwyneth!"

A young woman came in from outside in a servant's uniform.

"Where've you been? I was shouting."

She looked at him in dismay over his tone. What had she done to earn such? "I've been in the stables, sir, breaking the ice for old Sampson." The horse's sounds could be heard.

He moved forward. "Well, get back in there and harness him up."

"Whatever for, sir?"

"The stiffs are getting lively again." That drew Gwyneth closer as he continued, "Mister Redpath's grandmother, she's up and on her feet and out there somewhere on the streets. We've got to find her."

"Mister Sneed, for shame. How many more times? It's ungodly."

"Don't look at me like it's my fault. Now, come on, hurry up." He moved past her. "She was eighty-six. She can't have got far."

"What about Mister Redpath? Did you deal with him?"

He paused. This was not pretty. His words came out slowly. "No. She did."

She approached. "That's awful, sir." She paused briefly, trying to find the words that needed to bew spoken at last. "I know it's not my place, and please, forgive me for talking out of turn, sir. But this is getting beyond, now. Something terrible is happening in this house, and we've got to get help."

"And we will, as soon as I get that dead old woman locked up and safe and sound." He started pointing at her with a finger. "Now stop prevaricating, girl. Get the hearse ready. We're going body snatching."

/=/=/=/

After what felt like an eternity to Mickey in particular, it felt like the TARDIS slammed against something – despite staying upright. All three of them fell to the floor as the controls released steam from the journey. Mickey wondered if that was supposed to happen – ever.

The Doctor lay on the floor laughing. Jenny shook her head. "My god!" she cried as they got up. "That's worse than a rollercoaster!"

Mickey shuddered. "Blimey!"

"You're telling me!" the Doctor exclaimed, beaming. "Are you both alright?"

Jenny and Mickey glanced at each other, and nodded. "Yeah," Mickey said for both of them. "Nothing broken...although I'm not promising we won't have bruises."

"Did we make it?" Jenny wondered. "Where are we?"

The Doctor spent a moment studying the screen. "I did it! Give the man a medal. Earth - Naples - December 24th, 1860." He folded his arms in triumph and looked at their reactions.

Jenny laughed and shook her head. "Full of yourself even after all that mess, aren't you?"

The Doctor decided to pretend he didn't hear her. He focused on the screen instead.

Mickey blinked, wrapping his mind around what he'd heard. "It's Christmas Eve out there?"

The Doctor grinned and gestured towards the door. "All yours."

Jenny looked at Mickey, and frowned at his expression. "You all right?"

He nodded numbly. "But, it's like... think about it, though. Christmas. 1860. Happens once. Just once, and it's gone. It's finished. It'll never happen again. Except for you, Doctor." He studied their alien friend intently. "You can go back and see days that are dead and gone and a hundred thousand sunsets ago... No wonder you never stay still."

The Doctor shrugged, not even bothering to hide his grin. Decent description of what he did. If simplistic. The young man was warming up to him even if he wasn't aware of it. "Not a bad life."

"Better with friends," Jenny said.

They all grinned at each other for a few moments. Even Mickey was becoming caught up in the excitement. He clapped his hands together. "So... 1860. Can we go dressed like-?" He stopped himself, and paled slightly. "Is it even safe for me to go out there?"

The Doctor thought a long moment, suppressing his urge to snort, Mickey was raising a important point. "Well, if you go out there dressed like that, you'll start a riot, you two!" He pointed off to the side, looking either there or at them. "There's a wardrobe through there. First left, second right, third on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, it's the fifth door on your left. Hurry up! And there'll be separate changing rooms. No funny business in my ship!"

Jenny scowled. "Oi! I'm not even legal! Besides, we promised to wait until we're married." She observed his suddenly smug grin. "You're taking this adopted dad thing a bit seriously, aren't you?!"

The Doctor's grin didn't change. "Aren't dads supposed to be protective of their girls?"

She groaned. "Maybe I didn't think that one through. Still, it's not like we're ready for anything!"

Mickey raised a hand. "Um, excuse me? The clothes are one thing, but they won't hide this." He gestured to his own skin. "Won't I stand out like a neon sign? And I've read about the 19th century. They might think I'm a thief or a workman!"

The Doctor sighed. Mickey had read his history quite well. Perhaps too well, but he clearly had his reasons. "I have ways of handling that. Not going to be so pleasant to deal with, but it will work. Now go on then!"

Jenny rolled her eyes and dragged Mickey off. The Doctor smiled after them. It had been too long since a companion or assistant dressed for the era.

/=/=/=/

Old Sampson and his partner pulled the hearse slowly down the street, black feathers on their heads. Sneed looked around. A few people stood around in the snowy street, and a couple walked arm in arm together toward them. "Not a sign. Where is she?"

"She's vanished into the ether, sir. Where can she be?"

Sneed drew the carriage to a stop. He waited for her to look at him, and quietly demanded, "You tell me, girl."

"What do you mean?"

"Gwyneth, you know full well."

He was right, and she knew it. Her eyes widened. "No, sir. I can't," she quietly begged.

"Use the sight."

She hesitated. "It's not right, sir."

"Find the old lady or you're dismissed." He knew that would make her cooperate. "Now, look inside, girl. Look deep. Where is she?"

Gwyneth closed her eyes a moment, lowering her head. Within seconds she looked up again as she opened her eyes. It came out slowly. "She's lost, sir. She's so alone. Oh, my lord. So many strange things in her head."

"But where?" Sneed could have done without the rest. The where was the vital thing.

"She's excited... about tonight. Before she passed on, she was going to see him."

"Who's him?"

Awe crept into her tone. "The great man. All the way from London. The great, great man."

/=/=/=/

A man with thick hair and a beard that parted at the chin knocked on a door and promptly opened it. "Mister Dickens, Mister Dickens. Excuse me, sir, Mister Dickens. This is your call."

Mr. Dickens, with a thick head of hair and copious facial hair himself, had his eyes closed and was resting his head on a hand. He wore his dressing gown in a gold pattern over black fabric. The sight was enough to draw the man inside. " Are you quite well, sir?"

It stirred the great man. "Splendid, splendid. Sorry." He knew he sounded as exhausted as he felt. 

"Time you were on, sir." 

He stirred himself into motion, but needed to stay seated a bit longer. Although he gathered himself into a more authoritative posture. "Absolutely. I was just brooding. Christmas Eve. Not the best of times to be alone."

The man had folded his arms during the short speech. "Did no one travel with you, sir? No lady wife waiting out front?"

Dickens looked away. Despite the slight smile, there was no humor in his expression. "I'm afraid not."

Teasing, the man leaned forward. "You can have mine if you want."

He adjusted in his seat. "Oh, I wouldn't dare." He noted that the man lowered his arms in surprise, but continued nonetheless. "I've been rather, let's say, clumsy, with family matters. Thank God I'm too old to cause any more trouble."

"You speak as though it's all over, sir." The horror couldn't be hidden.

"No, it's never over." He looked at the sign for the show, which also drew the man's gaze as he checked to see what Mr. Dickens looked at. It was was readable from where the man stood said, almost entirely in capitalized letters and in a variety of sizes:

**Taliesin Lodge**

**Cardife**

**Friday, December 24th, 1869**

**Mr. Charles Dickens**

**His Many and Sundry Works**

**Free Performance**

**To Honour the**

**Children's Hospital**

**Extension of Time By Special License**

Dickens mused aloud. "On and on I go, the same old show." He pushed himself to his feet, leaning over his borrowed vanity to pour himself a glass as he added, "I'm like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself for all eternity."

"It's never too late, sir. You can always think up some new turns."

"No, I can't. Even my imagination grows stale." He quickly swallowed the contents as the younger man watched in alarm. "I'm an old man. Perhaps I've thought everything I'll ever think." He put down the glass and drew himself to perform. It made the man go for the dark jacket as Dickens removed the dressing gown to reveal a matching vest. "Still, the lure of the limelight's as potent as a pipe, what? Eh?" He let the man help him put on his jacket, and then he paused to look at his reflection. "On with the motley," he muttered, leaning forward to set something into place before he walked toward the door.

/=/=/=/

While he waited, the Doctor handled more repair work with the Sonic Screwdriver below the Controls. He knew that there would be some explanation required soon, but he was prepared to deal with it.

Mickey slowly walked in. He was wearing wool frock coat, unbuttoned which showed off his smart livery over a black waistcoat and matching jacket and trousers. His leather black shoes were polished to a shine. He grimaced over the layers, and the appearance they presented. "Are these supposed to fit like this?" That question he asked aloud. The other, was he what it looked like he was, he asked with his eyes.

The Doctor turned his screwdriver off, pushed himself to standing at the same level and examined Mickey's appearance. He nodded grimly in answer to the silent question, and assessed the other for a moment. "Hmm. Got it right. The TARDIS left you instructions, or did you figure it out on your own with that genius-level IQ?"

Mickey blinked. "Genius-level?!"

"Yeah. You didn't realise?"

"Um...no. I figured most of it out myself, but found a computer screen to help with the rest."

The Doctor nodded, pleased with the answer. "Good thing I'm around to make sure you use your brain to its fullest extent then. Not that Jenny would let you play the fool."

"But what about-?"

"Oh god!" Jenny's shout bounced off the walls. "Now I know why the women's liberation movements started. They must've gone mad having wear things like this, not to mention being short on air!" She emerged in a dress that she thought must have been designed for Cinderella. It was silver on white silk brocade with Royal-blue accents paisley pattern embroidery, reaching to but not hiding the Royal-blue sandals (the TARDIS' term, whilst she would've called them slippers) on her feet. Over her dress she wore a silk-lined Royal-blue velvet jacket robe, the tail neatly aligned over her bustle and ending with a collar and cuffs that matched her dress. The effect rendered her more beautiful than usual, not that she noticed given the constraints the dress imposed on her.

The Doctor and Mickey looked at her in surprise. Mickey's jaw dropped.

The Doctor blinked in shock. "Blimey!" The word escaped him before he knew it happened. He was certain the TARDIS would give her something lovely, but to go and give her something that expensive by the century's standards?!

Jenny liked Mickey's awed reaction. That was always a powerful feeling for a lady. The Doctor's reaction puzzled her. She knew she looked more like a princess, which was not fun given how much she hated playing princesses as a little girl. So she decided to mess with the Doctor's head. "What? What am I dressed as? A Prossie?!"

"No! No, that's a perfectly respectable dress for the times. It was later that the all-black look took over." It dawned on him that she was joking, so he took a deep breath to regroup. "You look like a young woman of the upper class. The clothes will get you anywhere, but while we don't want you mistaken for aristocracy – believe me, you don't want that – those clothes could make you seem almost like a princess. But what I meant was that it makes you look beautiful!"

Jenny and Mickey frowned.

The Doctor suddenly frowned and looked away awkwardly, settling his gaze on the younger man. "Mickey, you had better stay right next to her. The young human males of this time will try to steal her away, and that's putting it politely. I will not voice the worst that could happen. I see I should've given the TARDIS instructions to not make you look the absolute best a human could look."

Jenny laughed. "I assume that's a compliment... if a bit backhanded." She scowled over his clothing. "Aren't you going to change? You told us to!"

He was indignant. "I've changed my jumper! Come on!"

"Wait, Doctor!" Mickey caught their attention. "Haven't you noticed that my skin's a bit different than Jenny's? Won't I be instantly nabbed or something worse?"

The Doctor sighed. "No, you won't. I'm sorry, but I have to hide you as my manservant, my valet, to protect you from being nabbed and whipped, and that's at best. You do look like a respected one, so anyone looking at you would know you were in the employ of a wealthy person and hold an important position within the household. Which means any action against you would be a grave offence to your employer."

Mickey groaned. "So let me guess: no making eye contact, no talking unless I'm talked to first, don't correct my betters and especially not in public, and keep to your side at all times. Anything else?"

"Well, address me only as _needed_. As long as you act according to what people expect. I couldn't have you wear a perception filter. I wear one myself. It makes me blend in to wherever I am."

Jenny glanced at the angry but recovering Mickey. "Wonder how well it works?" she whispered aloud.

The Doctor pretended he didn't hear that. "So, off to see 1860!"

"Oi!" cried Mickey as the Doctor moved toward the door. "You, stay there! You've done this before. This is mine, and I think it falls within my 'duties'!" He hurried towards the door and opened it for Jenny.

Jenny looked out upon the winter wonderland that the street outside displayed. She slowly stepped into the untouched snow, making a slow progress and eyeing her footprints. Mickey and the Doctor followed her. The former was feeling the excitement and awe that she was despite his cover, and the latter was delighting in their reactions.

"Ready for this?"

Jenny nodded eagerly, and Mickey nodded more sedately, wishing he could offering her his arm. She sighed. "Wish you were more our chaperon, Doctor," she teased, her sense of humour recovering just a little. She was glad to see Mickey crack a tiny smile.

The Doctor laughed and moved so Jenny could take his arm. She smiled slightly, accepting. "Here we go," he declared. "History!"

And they walked off together, with Mickey on Jenny's other side and trying to look like he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. Despite the sour note, the humans were ready to explore the world around them.

Although they both started to wonder if Naples ever got snow, even at Christmas.

/=/=/=/

Inside the theatre, the red curtains were drawn and Charles Dickens stood still a moment before he walked out onto the stage. He was pleased to see the entire crowd burst into applause. Good to know he was still appreciated. He stepped from the raised area down to the main part of the stage, standing beside the podium.

He didn't notice that one of the audience was a dead woman. She was the only one not applauding.

/=/=/=/

The trio walked down the windy street, observing everything – Jenny and Mickey in utter awe, the Doctor with his usual grin on his face. The carol singers nearby, singing "The Tidings of Comfort and Joy" brought many memories back for the young couple. "I once sang that at Christmas with my gran," Mickey murmured.

Jenny however, was caught up in a memory...

_It was Christmas Eve service. Jenny was less than four months away from being five, an age she was looking forward to. For the first time, she was allowed to attend the late service, and she felt like a big girl. Her gran and gramps were on one side, her mum on the other. Both sets of great-grandparents were also there in the same row, but her gramps' were getting tired easily. She had a feeling that her family wasn't telling her something. What she wasn't sure of. Yet._

_She loved Christmas. The lights, the snow (when it fell), the smells, and the food were all fun. Maybe not quite as much fun as finding presents under the tree from her family, but they were nice._

_The singing she liked even more. She could read all of the songs, and she loved the sounds created when lots of people were singing them. So getting to be part of it was a treat._

_She was singing along with Hark, The Herald Angels Sing when she noticed her mummy wasn't singing at all. Her eyes were so sad, and she stared straight ahead at the choir._

_Keeping up her own singing, Jenny looked at the rest of her family. They were also keeping their eyes forward, although they were all singing too._

_Jenny grabbed her mummy's hand and squeezed. Her mummy looked at her, blinking away tears before wiping them away. With her eyes, she asked what was wrong even while she kept singing. Her mummy smiled sadly, and joined in at last._

_It didn't ease Jenny's concerns. She was going to ask as soon as the service was over._

"_Mummy?" she asked as soon as they were outside._

_Donna visibly braced herself. "Yes, love?"_

"_Why are you so sad at Christmas?"_

_Donna exchanged a look with her parents that Jenny couldn't figure out, and then Donna knelt to look Jenny in the eye. "I just wish you had a bigger family to celebrate with. That's all."_

_There was a firmness that Jenny knew to not challenge, but she worried anyway. "You don't hate Christmas, do you, Mummy?"_

"_No." Laughing through her nose, Donna slowly smiled. "I want you to have a happy time, my treasure. You love Christmas, so I'll make sure you have that experience."_

_Despite sensing that her mummy wasn't telling her the real story, Jenny grinned, giggling and hopping in place. "Can we make snow angels, Mummy?"_

"_You should be going to bed."_

"_But it's Christmas Eve!" She pleaded with her puppy eyes._

_Donna laughed and nodded, letting her daughter tug her along to find an empty space._

The Doctor noticed that Jenny was seeing and yet not seeing her surroundings. He could feel a memory of happiness within her, but couldn't detect anything else. The emotions, yes, but nothing else. He could usually read a little off a companion's thoughts, but Jenny's seemed naturally well-shielded. Another oddity about her.

Nearby, the hearse stopped. Gwyneth nodded at the theatre. "She's in there, sir. I'm certain of it."

"Right," Sneed said quietly, and they both slowly got off the open carriage.

A news seller caught the Doctor's eye, providing a wished-for distraction, and he led them toward it. Jenny noticed, coming out of her trance, as the Doctor bought a newspaper. Mickey wanted very much to snicker under his breath. Or say, 'And what did a Time Lord need a paper for? Can't detect everything with those superior senses?'

The Doctor unfolded the paper and quickly read it as he led them across the street. He forced his face to remain impassive as he absorbed the reality. "I got the flight a bit wrong."

Jenny scoffed. "Well, that explains why you were late coming back from that recharge trip. What did you get wrong? Location, year, what else?"

He read on carefully. "It's not 1860, it's 1869."

She shrugged. "Okay, not too off considering. Within the right decade."

"And it's not Naples."

Mickey rolled his eyes, keeping the lids mostly closed so no one saw. "So where _are_ we?" He asked it so quietly that only they could hear him, but kept his head tilted to not clue in as much that he was talking.

"It's Cardiff."

Now the humans blinked. They looked around. "Shouldn't Cardiff look different than this?" Jenny wondered aloud.

The Doctor shook his head. "The Welsh didn't start making their own culture apparent again until during the twentieth century, Jenny. This is the height of British power over the conquered lands."

Mickey exhaled sharply. "All hail the empire," he muttered darkly.

The Doctor shrugged. "Empires aren't very nice things. I've seen it far too many times."

"I bet," Jenny murmured.

/=/=/=/

Dickens was in the middle of giving a reading from A Christmas Carol to his spellbound audience, one hand on the podium as he aimed to add to the drama of his already powerful words as his eyes slowly flickered from one area of the audience to another. "Now, it is a fact that there was nothing particular at all about the knocker on the door of this house, but let any man explain to me if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without it's undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face!"

It drew the appropriate murmurs from the audience.

"It looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look. It looked like..."

He trailed off as he noticed one old woman's face glowing bluish. It seemed like her head was giving off a faint gas.

He struggled for words. "Oh, my lord. It looked like that!" He pointed a shaking finger without thinking.

The audience turned to see, and those nearby drew back in horror.

"What phantasmagoria is this?" Dickens nearly cried aloud.

The corpse rose smoothly to her feet and looked upward, groaning as blue gas escaped in tendrils from her mouth. The audience screamed and began to flee.

The trio outside heard it, and so did anyone else. Many people, and the sound of people running like the devil was upon them. Or, Jenny thought as she recalled the previous moments around the Doctor, like some being or beings they didn't understand were about.

The Doctor grinned. "That's more like it!" He tossed the newspaper over his shoulder and ran toward the screaming. Jenny and Mickey followed, Jenny trailing behind a little despite her usual abilities. She would have been completely behind them if Mickey had not stayed by her side. The dress with its laced whalebone corset was _not_ meant for running – which was one more point for modern times.

/=/=/=/

The blue gas kept coming from the corpse and began flying around the auditorium. The audience continued fleeing as Dickens tried to restore order, holding out his hands. "Stay in your seats, I beg you. It is a lantern show. It's trickery."

"Excuse me," Sneed murmured at the crowd pushing past him, trying to see.

Gwyneth pointed. "There she is, sir!"

"I can see that. The whole blooming world can see that!" They tried to push their way forward.

Outside a policeman was blowing his whistle.

Inside, Dickens kept staring as it traveled in a strange flowing line upward.

It felt like a long time to Mickey before they entered what appeared to be a theatre. There was no doorman to stop Mickey from entering, not that the Doctor would have stood for it since he said he wanted the human man around for Jenny's protection. He followed the Doctor, holding on to Jenny to help her move more quickly, and they froze. Coloured gas zoomed around the room. It seemed to have a face and was screaming. He and Jenny stared in amazement and then growing alarm.

The Doctor was naturally awed and pleased. "Fantastic."

Mickey was ready to ask how this mayhem could be so wonderful when he realized that the gas was coming from the mouth of an old woman. The last of it left and she slumped down into the chair. She seemed lifeless. "Is she dead?"

He barely noted the two people who approached her.

The Doctor shrugged and approached a man with a beard. He was standing on the stage, the only person who hadn't fled. His clothes were clearly those of well to-do gentleman, a master craftsman, possibly establishment owner, since his hands did not bare the markings of a man who worked with his hands. That instantly set him aside as a writer or mid to highbrow entertainer, possibly a reader or a poet. "Did you see where it came from?" the Doctor asked from the floor, looking upward.

Jenny and Mickey followed, and saw the man glare at the Doctor. "Ah. The wag reveals himself, does he?"

The Doctor was struck by his presence at once. His accent definitely set him apart from the locals. He wasn't even Welsh. He was very distinctly a Londoner, Standard English, well-educated.

"I trust you're satisfied, sir!" he riled, not in the least giving him the vantage of the compliment.

The Doctor was taken aback. It seemed no matter how many times he was blamed for things he didn't do, it never blunted the sting.

Jenny looked back to see an elderly man dressed in black garb, making him possibly an undertaker or a doctor, someone who dealt with the dead or dying, and a young woman in a maid's smock, apron and bonnet making off with the old woman's lifeless form. "Oi! Leave her alone!"

They didn't hear her. Or they were ignoring her. Either way, it didn't sit well with Jenny. Didn't people rob graves in these days? Or even kill to create medical cadavers? She ran after them, yelling over her shoulder, "I'll get 'em!"

The Doctor didn't like her running off. "Be careful! Mickey, go with her!"

He didn't need to be told twice. "Yes, sir!"

Trouble was there was still a large crowd, even though it had thinned out significantly, and somehow Jenny was pushing her way through it. He had to get through without getting knocked down or hit. And Jenny was managing to move faster than she should've been able to in this crowd.

As the young man rushed away and hopefully protected by his uniform, the Doctor jumped onto the stage to join his latest accuser, who backed off slightly. He didn't even notice the other man standing off to the side of the stage, staring in as much shock as anyone and yet staying in case he was needed. "Did it say anything? Could it speak? I'm The Doctor, by the way," he added, looking up at the creature.

The man looked the Doctor over. "Doctor? You look more like a navvy."

The Doctor spluttered. "What's _wrong_ with this jumper?"

/=/=/=/

Jenny found the two loading the old woman into the back of what looked like a hearse. She caught up with them. "What're you doing?!" she shouted, noting the man behind the woman.

The maid tried to block her from looking inside. "Oh, it's such a tragedy, miss." Her accent placed her as firmly Welsh, specifically Cardiff. 'Don't worry yourself, me and the master will deal with it."

Jenny pushed her aside, reaching for the old woman's forehead. The maid tried to prevent her while the man moved around the other side. "The fact is, this poor lady's been taken with the brain fever and we have to get her to the infirmary."

Jenny shook her head. "She's cold... Oh my god, she's dead!" She whipped around, shocking the maid into backing off. "What did you do to her? What are you doing with her?!"

Unfortunately, Jenny's ability to immerse herself into the moment meant she forgot about the man. He suddenly reappeared, clamping a cloth over Jenny's mouth and nose as he grabbed her. She briefly registered the sickly sweet smell, and tried to hold her breath as she kicked the man, trying to shriek when she couldn't hold in the air any longer. Although she managed a kick to the gonads, the man didn't let go of her she also lost the battle against unconsciousness and passed out.

"What did you do that for?" Gwyneth protested.

Sneed had no remorse for his actions. "She's seen too much. Get her in the hearse. Legs."


	3. Cover Stories and Foul Wind

**Author's Note**: Everyone has had the idea of taking a character and putting them into a different family situation. So, take one character from Who, transform the circumstances of her birth into something normal (or as normal as one can get in DW), and give her a different family. What do you get? Possibly this story. If you eliminate one other character...

Also, working on this fic made me realize how sheltered the companions who were – well, not of a "different race" appears to be the term even though I don't like using it – were. As if Mickey didn't have enough to deal with in canon; being ignored by his girlfriend for one, the Press that denied his place as the first Black companion, being called an Idiot when he was only playing the fool (which actually makes two things), then he chose to escape the girlfriend by going to a world that had to be at least as intolerant as the one he fled from, and who knows what he dealt with while Rose tried to work that Cannon. Here, I have faced the ethnicity issue head on and... well, read on. You may want a pillow to punch at times, as I have kept it true to the era in which this episode was set. Fair warning.

And as always, please review first with the idea that this was New Who airing for the first time. Then compare. :D

**CHAPTER THREE: COVER STORIES AND FOUL WIND**

Mickey couldn't believe how fast Jenny could move when the urge hit her. He was out of breath, and lost track of her before he even reached the front doors. Pausing to draw enough breath for another burst of energy, he raced outside just as he heard the Doctor shouting, "Gas! It's made of gas!"

He didn't want to know. But he knew he would likely learn anyway.

By the time he stumbled down the outside steps of the theatre, he looked around for anything out of the ordinary. Then he noticed two people racing into a carriage, and thought they looked familiar. Like those people Jenny had run after. Trouble was, they were pulling away... and there was no sign of his girl. "Jenny!"

If anything, the carriage driver – the man – seemed to pick up the pace. Mickey ran after them, fear making him forget his cover story, but couldn't keep up.

The Doctor hurried outside, moving quickly when he heard Mickey's shout. He saw the young man losing ground against a hearse carriage. "Jenny!"

Mickey turned. "They've got her! I know they do!" And that frightened him. He'd brought her back to the Tower Hamlets area last year, to help him bring things to his gran. An area boy named Jimmy Stone had tried to hurt Jenny, but she had managed to not only injure his privates but knock him out cold by throwing a small object at him. Luckily, Jimmy also had bad timing and so Jenny had witnesses to prove she was attacked. Which made her being abducted here more terrifying.

"You're not escaping me, sir!" The bearded man – now wearing a cloak – chased after the Doctor, stopping beside his momentarily immobile form. "What do you know about that hobgoblin, hmm?" He ignored the Doctor's looking around quickly. "Projection on glass, I suppose. Who put you up to it?"

He spotted a nearby coach. "Yeah, mate. Not now, thanks," he tossed at the man, racing for a nearby coach and signaling Mickey to join him.

The young man moved as fast as he could, desperate to catch up.

"Oi, you!" shouted the Doctor at the driver. "Follow that hearse!" He would have jumped into the coach, determined to pull Mickey inside on the way if he had to, but he waited for the younger man to catch up.

"You can't do that, sir!" the bearded man hollered, catching up.

"Why not?" the Doctor tetchily asked as Mickey managed another wind to reach the coach.

The man spluttered. "Why not?! I'll give you a very good reason why not! This is my coach!"

Mickey stopped. He wasn't sure where he was supposed to be given the times. "Sir?"

The Doctor wasn't willing to wait, especially since Mickey hesitated. "Well, get in then!" He pushed Mickey in first, then dragged the bearded man in after getting inside himself. "Move!" he commanded the driver.

The driver could not see them given his seating, but he had seen Mickey and heard his master's squawking in shock. "Not before you remove the n-"

"Oi!" roared the Doctor, making the driver and the bearded man start. "Where I go my valet goes, and I have a missing girl to find! Now move the coach!"

He was relieved that it was promptly obeyed, and the driver hurried them along on a rumbling journey.

Not that it was fast enough for the Doctor. "Come on, you're losing them!" he snapped. He would keep up the Oncoming Storm voice if he had to.

"Everything in order, Mr. Dickens?" the driver asked, wanting to forget that the northern man frightened him into obeying.

"No! It is not!"

The name used caught the Doctor's attention. "What did he say?"

Mickey wanted to snap at the Doctor for his timing, but he was still out of breath.

Dickens was aghast over the boldness of the stranger, and over how comfortable the servant was in a coach. Who were these men?! Where did they come from?! "Let me say this first. I'm not without a sense of humour-"

"Dickens?" the Doctor, his brain catching up with his hearing.

"Yes."

"Charles Dickens?"

Now Mickey's attention was caught. "_The_ Charles Dickens?" he panted, thinking he couldn't possibly have heard correctly. And forgetting his supposed place.

The man gave them both a measured look, although Mickey kept his attention a bit longer. "Yes," he answered warily, and only partly because the northerner could quell opposition with a furious look. It was surprising enough to see a black not only wearing excellent livery but sounding almost educated. That was unheard of, for education was not allowed unless they were related to a member of the upper classes. But that he would address one of his betters directly?!

The driver seemed to notice that yet more was not well. "Shall I remove the gentleman, sir?"

Ignoring the ignoring of Mickey, the Doctor cried, "Charles Dickens!" He was smiling despite his worries. "You're brilliant, you are! Completely 100% brilliant! I've read 'em all! Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and what's the other one, the one with the ghost?"

Dickens blinked. "A Christmas Carol?"

"No, no, no, the one with the trains... The Signal Man, that's it, terrifying!"

Mickey thought Dickens looked suddenly pleased, if a bit baffled still. Although he knew the story and agreed completely with the Doctor's assessment. He was still coming to terms with having read it.

"The best short story ever written!" the Doctor continued. "You're a genius!"

"You want me to get rid of him, sir?"

Dickens slowly shook his head. "Er, no, I think he and his servant can stay," he told the driver, who proceeded to ignore them and keep following the hearse.

Which was fine by the Doctor. "Honestly, Charles - can I call you Charles? I'm such a big fan."

Mickey nearly groaned as the Doctor gushed. Closing his eyes, he wondered how the alien called this blending in. This might get them, particularly Mickey himself, into more trouble.

Already bewildered that the Doctor would permit his servant to ride with them and that said servant was hardly keeping his eyes lowered as expected, Dickens' eyes went wider in confusion and he stammered a bit. "What? A what?"

"Fan! Number One Fan, that's me."

Mickey doubted the term existed during this time. And Dickens confirmed it. "How exactly are you a fan? In what way do you resemble a means of keeping oneself cool?"

Despite himself, Mickey let out a quiet snort. When they got Jenny back, she was going to be mad she missed this conversation. But he quickly schooled his expression into a blank one when he saw Dickens glare irritatedly at him, and focused on looking out the window to pretend he wasn't paying attention – even if he couldn't ignore the reflections – because he remembered a servant was not supposed to listen in on their betters. He hoped the Doctor could protect him.

The Doctor shook his head. Aware of Mickey's faux pas, he kept going with his enthusiasm. "No, it means 'Fanatic', devoted to. Mind you, I've gotta say, that American bit in Martin Chuzzlewit, what was that about?! Was that just padding or what? I mean, it's rubbish, that bit."

Mickey closed his eyes and covered his face. They had so much to teach him about tact. And he was going to demand to choose where they went next, assuming they all made it out alive.

Dickens was disgruntled already, and that didn't help at all. "I thought you said you were my fan."

Mickey couldn't take it anymore, even if it risked his own life. Although he did think a moment about what to say. "Excuse me, Sir, but what are we going to do when we catch up?!"

"You let you servant talk to you that way?!" Dickens snapped. "He is ill-mannered, black, and riding inside a respectable coach!"

The Doctor flinched. "Mickey, I need you to remember that you need to keep your eyes down, your head lowered and your mouth shut. When we find her, I'll decide what to do about the person or people who took her and what you can do to help me, but your biggest responsibility will be to make sure she's okay and safe. Sorry, it's the best I can do, but just don't draw attention to yourself."

Suddenly concerned that he might've made it harder, Mickey nodded and lowered his head. "Yes, Sir," he whispered tightly. "Forgive me for being concerned over a girl I saved as a little boy."

Satisfied for the moment, although blinking over the added line, the Doctor snapped at the driver. "Hurry up!"

The driver urged the horses on, increasing their speed.

Dickens eyed the Doctor. "Who exactly _is_ in that hearse? And what does he mean by saying he saved her?"

When the Doctor hesitated a few seconds too long, Mickey decided it was time to risk some more behavior not of this era. "With all due respect, Sir, let me tell this." He risked looking Dickens right in the eye, stunning him and the Doctor. "I was a boy when the Doctor came to where I was. With him was his even younger ward, Miss Jenny. Sweet and kind, she charmed everyone. But the Doctor didn't know some of his enemies were there. They plotted to kidnap her, and I overheard. They thought I was just a stupid little black boy. Well, I risked a whipping to run and tell her guardian what I heard. He stopped my master from beating me, and made me tell him all. He set a trap to see if I was right, and it caught them all. Along with some others involved. He bought me away and has had me protect her ever since."

The Doctor nodded, impressed with the cover story. "Yes, I saw intelligence in the boy, and knew it would be shameful to let it waste away where he was. I knew I'd need a new personal manservant by the time he was of age and so I started training him. His intelligence and his ability to look like an idiot have served me well. You have an imagination, Charlie, so I know you can guess how well. And he has never failed me. Not even today, because Jenny is not an easy girl to watch over. She is head-strong and frightfully intelligent herself, but I would not have her be any other way."

Dickens' anger faded. He shook his head in silent marvel. "I praise you, young man, for being so equal in inequality, when men of higher standing would down you in a twice for looking him in the eye. Pray tell, from what part of London do you hail where men of such audacity can call himself a seat in a gentleman's carriage and meet him eye to eye?"

Mickey was a little put out, and the Doctor slightly ruffled. Mickey muttered under his breath, "Get stuffed. I ain't no servant!"

Curiosity about their origins heightened, Dickens felt impressed by this young black man who deserved quite a bit of praise. He was aware of the conventions of their day and yet determined to overcome them. Dickens himself did not approve, but he knew his own outspokenness had brought him enemies and so he had to be careful. He still had to ask again, "Then Miss Jenny is the one we're after?"

"My ward," the Doctor explained. "The girl put under my protection at the darkest point in my life," he added, letting his own pain fuel the rest of the cover story. "She saved me just by coming into my life, and I vowed to keep her safe always. She's only seventeen, and it's my fault. She's in my care, and now she's in danger."

His fault. Jenny would have a field day with this, Mickey thought. So would Donna and Sylvia. Not that he had met Jenny's mother yet, but he was a little concerned over her possibly slapping him. In fact, maybe he would tell them about it just to make the Doctor pay the price for not doing more to prevent this.

Dickens was appalled by the end of the Doctor's admission. "Why are we wasting my time talking about dry old books and etiquette? This is much more important. Driver! Be swift! The chase is on!"

Because it didn't matter the girl's race. She was a human being in danger, and he wished to reach her before some evil befell her.

"Yes, sir!" The coach gained more speed.

The Doctor beamed. "Thatta boy, Charlie!"

Dickens blinked. "Nobody calls me Charlie."

"The ladies do."

Mickey's eyes widened. Dickens beat him to the question. "How do you know that?"

"I told you - I'm your Number One-"

"Number One Fan, yes..." Dickens sounded weary of that. He eyed the Doctor, lowering his voice a bit. "I'm more interested in knowing why your man servant there has such dark skin and yet no manners suited to his station."

Mickey's hands gripped his trousers tightly. He wanted to glare at the famous author, but he forced his eyes to stay down even as he couldn't resist a retort. "With all due respect, Mr. Dickens, my station – as you have put it – is to protect Miss Jenny. If God saw fit to give me intelligence that your fellows assume is beyond a black man, then to punish me for making the most of the Lord's gifts is not only racist, it's blasphemous!"

"Believe me, I am not partial to segregation, dear boy, but it is a matter of respect and social appearances," Dickens suggested quietly, uncomfortable with the accusation. "Now, to the answers to my questions, if you please, sir?"

The Doctor's eyes never left Dickens' face. "A highly creative, intelligent mind is hard to fool with a filter, Mickey. Or a good cover story. I had no idea we'd meet one."

Mickey groaned again. "Pardon me, _Boss_, but I believe Miss Jenny would say that's the story of your life." He finally felt he could use the term since they had earn Dickens' respect and acceptance.

The Doctor looked chagrined.

/=/=/=/

Gwyneth and Sneed carried their unwelcome captive into the Chapel of Rest. The poor maid followed orders, but worried about them having her and insisted they keep the girl's cloak about her despite the extra weight. "The poor girl's still alive, sir! What're we going to do with her?"

"I don't know!" Sneed exclaimed as they set about laying the blonde girl on the black cloth covered table in the middle of the room. "I didn't plan any of this, did I. It isn't my fault if the dead won't stay dead."

Gwyneth, finished putting the legs and feet up, looked up as Sneed finished placing the girl's upper body. "Then whose fault is it, sir? Why is this happening to us?"

Sneed was silent, then motioned her out of the room. As they left, one of the gas lamps flared. Whispered voices fluttered in the room.

Sneed thought a moment as they walked down the hall, having removed their cloaks. "I did the Bishop a favour, once. Made his nephew look like a cherub even though he'd been a fortnight in the weir." He stopped Gwyneth as the idea fully formed. "Perhaps he'll do us an exorcism on the cheap."

Someone knocked on the door. Sneed was not happy. Indeed, he was alarmed. This person might be this girl's guardian or parent. He could not be found with her in his possesion. "Say I'm not in. Tell them we're closed. Just, just get rid of them." He went back down the corridor.

Gwyneth hurried to the door.

/=/=/=/

An instant later Jenny coughed as she woke up. There were odd whispers in the room. She felt slightly out of sorts as she pushed herself upright. "Oh god, why is my skin crawling?!" She flinched, remembering running after the man and the woman. "Oi!" she shouted. "If you touched me-!"

She cut herself off as she noticed that she was in a room surrounded by dead bodies. "I'm in a mortuary?!" She pushed herself off the table she was on. "Oh, when I get my hands on that-"

This time it was seeing the same gas at the theatre emerge from one of the lamps and go into the body of a male corpse in the room that stopped her speech. The body sat up suddenly, making Jenny's jaw drop in horror.

/=/=/=/

It had taken far too long before they reached the undertaker's. The three men had rushed out, and Dickens had knocked on the door. Each felt impatient, and were ready to act. He had to knock again and a woman – the one Mickey remembered – in a maid's clothing opened it.

Gwyneth started slightly, recognising Dickens from the visions she saw when they searched for the old woman. "I'm sorry, sir, we're closed," she said, clearly trying to hide nervousness.

Dickens scoffed as the Doctor and Mickey tried to restrain themselves. "Nonsense! Since when did an undertaker keep office hours? The dead don't die on schedule. I demand to see your master."

The woman shook her head. "He's not in, sir." She tried to close the door.

Fear and anger taking center stage, Mickey rushed in, preventing her from shutting the door. "Don't lie to us! I know you've got Miss Jenny in here! Where is she?!"

Dickens and the Doctor followed, the former letting his anger at being put off come out. "Don't lie to _me_, child!"

The woman, who was rather young, was trembling in the face of the anger of a black man in high ranking servants clothes, and Dickens' pushed her into tears. "I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Dickens, but the master's indisposed-"

"Having trouble with your gas?" the Doctor asked, noticing the light behind her flickering oddly. He supposed he should also wonder how the woman knew who Dickens was.

Dickens saw it also. "What the Shakespeare is going on?"

If Mickey hadn't been restraining himself from grabbing the woman, he might've smiled over the rather polite form of cursing. If only the author knew that his name would eventually be substituted.

/=/=/=/

Jenny couldn't believe it when the corpse suddenly made zombie noises at her, looking in her direction. "Oh my god! First dummies coming alive, then a human who takes surgery beyond all belief, and now zombies are real?! What's next, vampires?!"

He climbed slowly out of the coffin.

She rushed to the door, trying the handle. It wouldn't open the door – it was locked.

The corpse, free of what was supposed to be his final home, took staggering steps towards her.

Jenny shook the handle harder, making the door creek. She wondered if she could make it break – even if that might free that awful creature.

/=/=/=/

The Doctor, hearing odd noises like whispers, pushed his way inside and pressed his ear to the wall behind the door, just near the lamp that should not have been so lit.

"You're not allowed inside, sir!" the woman cried, not taking her eyes off Mickey and his angry gaze.

"There's something inside the walls," the Doctor announced.

"Can you hear Jenny?!" Mickey demanded.

"Not yet," the Doctor admitted.

/=/=/=/

Jenny glanced back and noticed the old woman – the same one whose body was the reason she was here – getting up as well. Her jaw nearly disengaged from her skull.

/=/=/=/

"The gas pipes," the Doctor breathed as things clicked in his mind. "Something's living inside the gas."

/=/=/=/

Jenny risked grabbing two vases, and threw the contents at each of the zombies. The vases broke, stunning both creatures, but stopping neither. She rattled the door violently violently. "Zombies!" screamed Jenny. "Let me out! Open the door!"

The maid closed her eyes in dismay. Mickey and the Doctor barely noticed. "Jenny!" they cried and ran toward her voice. Dickens followed, and the woman trailed behind.

"Let me out now! You hear me?!" Jenny's voice screamed like an banshee.

The Doctor charged past a man who was probably the Sneed mentioned on the nameplate outside.

"This is my house!" the man bellowed.

Mickey paused long enough to punch him in the face. The man dropped the floor, awake but wounded, as Mickey – satisfied for the moment and uncaring what the man tried later, since the plonker would have to get through Jenny and the Doctor first – chased after Dickens as well. He heard the man splutter-yell at the woman who still followed, "I told you!"

"I've got things to tell you, mate!" Mickey shouted over his shoulder.

/=/=/=/

Jenny kept shaking the handle, but not taking her eyes off the corpses that were getting far too close. "Let me out! Somebody, open the door! Open the door!" She didn't care that she sounded like a helpless creature – if it got someone's attention, the screaming would do its job.

The male corpse reached a hand to cover her mouth. Jenny managed to dodge it and swat it briefly away with a self-defense move, although his other arm grabbed hers and tugged her back.

Suddenly the door was kicked in, and the Doctor stormed in. "I think this is MY dance," he snapped, grabbing Jenny away. The corpses stopped moving forward, but stayed upright.

Dickens froze, Mickey still catching up. "It's a prank?" the author wondered aloud. "It must be. We're under some mesmeric influence."

"No, we're not," the Doctor said as Mickey tugged a panting Jenny behind him for her protection. "The dead are walking." He glanced briefly at her. "You all right?"

Jenny nodded, holding tight to Mickey and not looking away from the walking dead. "Who's your new friend?" she gasped.

Mickey answered. "It's Mr. Charles Dickens!" he whispered, looking at her just long enough to reassure himself that she was unharmed.

Jenny was in too much shock to react properly, although she blinked as she looked at the man. "No!"

The Doctor had looked back at the corpses immediately. "My name's the Doctor. Who are you, then? What do you want?"

"We're failing," the male corpse rasped. Although the voice was not just his own. Male, female, and child-like voices joined in. The old woman's mouth remained motionless. "Open the rift, we're dying. Trapped in this form – cannot sustain – help us." Then the male and the old woman raised their heads to the ceiling. The same blue gas left them with a dreadful wailing sound, flowing back into the lamp, and both corpses fell to the floor.

The witnesses were all left staring. For various reasons.


	4. Sighted Girls

**CHAPTER FOUR: SIGHTED GIRLS**

Gwyneth, the timid Welsh woman and maid, poured them all tea. Jenny had needed a long moment to recover herself while they went to the parlour, and so the proper introduction to Dickens didn't happen until they entered the room. Mickey wanted to wait for her blood to not be so up. She needed to have her say, but he saw wisdom in helping her defuse a little so she could reason again. Like her mother, anger rendered her rational mind a bit limited at times.

So he risked breaking protocol to confirm to Jenny that she was in the presence of one of her favorite authors. She had gushed almost as much as the Doctor had. She couldn't say she had read everything Dickens ever published, but her questions were phrased in a much more polite manner of expressing disagreement with or confusion over various things. Dickens was rather impressed with Jenny as they sat at a table. He had removed his jacket and cloak, but she kept hers on, feeling a need to be comforted by its presence.

While Dickens already had his tea and Jenny was sipping hers, she remembered what had happened. "What the hell are you up to?!" she suddenly snapped at Sneed, who held a handkerchief against his still bleeding nose, and jumped up to stand menacingly nearby. She thought about grabbing his cane, but she would've preferred her gran's axe.

Mickey's knuckles were protesting what he did, but he had no regrets over his actions.

Sneed was furious. "That little n-"

"He," screamed Jenny as she marched into Sneed's face, "is worth more than twenty of your ilk!" Her voice was taunting, her own anger making her barely remember her manners.

"He ought to know his place!"

She slapped him.

Sneed was rendered silent, and Dickens sat with eyes wide.

Jenny wasn't done. "And you drugged and kidnapped me! My skin tells me that your hands wandered a bit, you dirty old man!"

The Doctor would have sniggered, but he found he wasn't keen on the idea of anyone touching a companion without their permission. Especially not this one. Hadn't he agreed to treat her like a daughter? He'd have to punish this man if he didn't think Jenny and Mickey did enough.

But he frowned even more at her words. A human shouldn't be able to retain external fresh stimuli for the length of time it took to revive from chloroform inhalation. How did she know?

Sneed lowered his hand enough to try for an effective glare. "I won't be spoken to like this!"

Jenny slapped him with her other hand.

The man looked like he was seeing stars. The Doctor flinched. Two red cheeks and a broken nose. Not Sneed's night. Jenny clearly got it from her grandmother. But hadn't she said her mum slapped even harder? He was suddenly a little nervous about meeting her. Even if she was a ginger.

Mickey grinned in pride as Jenny continued her rightful vitriol. "Then you locked me in a room full of zombies, leaving me to die! I've earned an explanation and the right to slap you, so talk! Or are you too galled by the knowledge that someone you consider beneath you is better than you'll ever be?!"

Sneed, as shocked as he was, had to retort at the Doctor. "The likes of a blackie acting above his station, speaking in polite company, hitting his betters. He should be flogged, sir! I've a good mind to do it myself! And now you, you little urchin!"

Jenny snapped, "An underage urchin, you pervert!"

Sneed's face paled a fair bit. He shut up, for the moment.

Jenny folded her arms. "What loyal servant wouldn't hit someone for hurting their master's charges? You scream at him for simply doing his job? You should count yourself lucky it wasn't the Doctor who hit you. Now... talk."

Despite being alarmed by a young girl bringing him a tongue-lashing like he had never had from a man, Sneed slowly recovered himself enough to talk, without causing himself more of a headache. "It's not my fault, it's this house! It always had a reputation." His eyes drifted about the room's occupants, although he avoided looking at Mickey. "Haunted. But I never had much bother until a few months back. And then the stiffs-" He stopped when Dickens looked a bit offended. "...the er, dear departed started getting restless."

Dickened scoffed. "Tommyrot."

"You witnessed it! Can't keep the beggars down, sir! They walk. And it's the queerest thing that they hang on to scraps..."

Gwyneth place the Doctor's tea on the ledge over the fireplace, where he leaned against. "Two sugars, sir, just how you like it."

She barely met his eyes as she spoke, leaving the Doctor looking at her retreating back in confused curiosity. He was beginning to wonder about a second strange young woman, but this one seemed easy to figure out. She was psychic. He could feel it. Jenny, on the other hand, was far more intriguing, but that could wait. She also plainly a different kind of psychic, but again that could wait. And Gwyneth wasn't going anywhere. Indeed, she sat down near where Dickens sat.

Unaware, Sneed continued. "One old fella who used to be a sexton almost walked into his own memorial service! Just like the old lady going to your performance, sir! Just as she planned."

Dickens shook his head. "Morbid fancy," he declared, standing.

The Doctor shook off concern over what Gwyneth could sense. "Oh, Charles, you were there."

He walked a bit to the side. "I saw nothing but an illusion."

The Doctor quickly swallowed his tea, making his companions flinch from imagining all that heat in a throat at one time. "If you're going to deny it, don't waste my time. Just shut up." He barely noted Dickens' stunned reaction, instead focusing on Sneed. "What about the gas?"

The man lowered his handkerchief, apparently feeling the bleeding had stopped. "That's new, sir, never seen anything like that."

The Doctor frowned. "Means it's getting stronger, the rift's getting wider and something's sneaking through."

Mickey frowned. "What's the rift?"

"A weak point in time and space," the Doctor explained. "The connection between this place and another. That's the cause of ghost stories, most of the time."

Dickens, Mickey noticed, looked intrigued as Sneed had a moment of clarity.

"That's how I got the house so cheap," the old man recalled.

At the same moment, Dickens slipped from the room.

Mickey pointed at the newly closed door when the Doctor looked a moment later for the author, puzzled over missing his departure.

"Stories going back generations," Sneed continued. "Echoes in the dark. Queer songs in the air and this feeling like a... shadow. Passing over your soul. Mind you, truth be told, it's been good for business. Just what people expect from a gloomy old trade like mine."

The Doctor left the room, following Dickens. Jenny motioned that she was going to follow Gwyneth, and Sneed was clearly not going anywhere. So Mickey followed the Doctor.

When the Doctor looked at him in question, Mickey shrugged. "I think Jenny can take care of herself right now. Me, I think I need to be right by your side. I'm not keen on getting into a fight or worse."

The Doctor nodded. "Wise. And you've earned Dickens' respect, which is no small feat."

Mickey felt a lot better, even found a smile of pride.

/=/=/=/

Dickens walked the hall and stopped by one of the gas lamps. He listened for the odd sounds, almost like whispers. But he could make out none. "Impossible," he declared, turning to the Chapel.

The author soon lifted the man's coffin lid, and thought a moment about how he could check for anything that could explain away what they saw. He waved his hands in front of the face, shook the corpse, and searched around and underneath the coffin.

He was oblivious to the two men watching him – the Doctor with his arms folded in the doorway, Mickey standing still in empathy for the confusion.

"Checking for strings?" the Doctor inquired.

Dickens kept looking. "Wires, perhaps? There must be some mechanism behind this fraud!"

The Doctor unfolded his arms and walked into the room. "Oh, come on, Charles," he said, walking over to join him. "All right. I shouldn't have told you to shut up." He put a supportive hand on Dicken's shoulder. "I'm sorry. But you've got one of the best minds in the world. You saw those gas creatures."

Dickens shook his head. "I cannot accept that."

Mickey understood the feeling.

The Doctor pressed on. "And what does the human body do when it decomposes? It breaks down and produces gas. Perfect home for these gas things - they can slip inside and use it as a vehicle. Just like your driver and his coach."

"Stop it!" Dickens looked horrified, stricken. "Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?"

"Not wrong," the Doctor suggested. "There's just more to learn."

That described anyone's life, Mickey realized. The question was how willing a person was to learn.

"I've always railed against the fantasies," Dickens mused. "Oh, I loved an illusion as much as the next man, revelled in them – but that is exactly what they were. Illusions! The real world is something else. I dedicated myself to that. Injustices. The great social causes. I hoped that I was a force for good. Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack o' lanterns. In which case – have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has it all been for nothing?"

Mickey had no idea how to answer that. Even the Doctor seemed to be struggling.

/=/=/=/

Jenny came in through the kitchen and found Gwyneth lighting another gas lamp in the wash room. It was a crowded and dark room, nothing like she was used to seeing. Frowning gently at the evidence of all the work women in this time had to do and that this maid was left to do it all alone, she walked over and grabbed dishes to help with the washing.

****Gwyneth turned, startled. "Please, Miss! You shouldn't be helping! It's not right!"

"Sneed works you to death. I don't mind. I know you meant me no harm. I have a little instinct about people."

Gwyneth reluctantly passed her a dry cloth. "But your dress!"

"It's just a dress, Gwyneth. It can cleaned. Now won't it feel better to have all this done?"

That left the maid without a reply, and the two began to work – although Gwyneth continued to look a bit put out.

Jenny remembered one summer helping Great-Gran clean like this. She had evidently done the same for Donna years before – help her learn how to function without many of the modern conveniences. Like her mum, Jenny took pride in her ability to do so.

Although it was a test of her patience. She wondered if that was one more thing her mum could rightly blame on her dad's genes.

Shaking off her thoughts, Jenny turned her attention to Welsh woman. "How much do you get paid?"

"Eight pound a year, miss," was the prompt reply.

Jenny nearly fumbled a plate. That little? Then she remembered the existence of inflation and how in the Jane Austen novels her mum was so fond of, half a guinea (now 58 pence in modern money) was a great gift for one heroine's brother when they were children. She only heard the term in reference to horse races and certain types of payment – where it seemed more an aristocratic hanging on than a useful word. All she said was a stunned, "Really?"

Gwyneth smiled. "I know. I would've been happy with six."

Wow, Jenny thought dumbfounded. She hadn't realised just how different that really was. Ten pounds a year would probably seem like a lot to Gwyneth, never mind as a gift from a wealthy uncle. "How often did you go to school, if I may ask?" She wasn't sure it was the right way to say it, but it sounded better than the more direct methods she usually employed – learned at her mum and gran's knees. And her great-gran's. She missed her sorely right then.

"I went every Sunday. Nice and proper."

Jenny blinked. "Once a week? That's all?" When did the almost daily schools open?

It seemed like she didn't hear the second part. "We did sums and everything. To be honest, I hated every second."

Jenny smiled. She wasn't going to admit that she found that subject easy – she wasn't sure Gwyneth did. "There was plenty to hate about school, wasn't there?" she agreed.

They both laughed.

Gwyneth suddenly lowered her voice. "Don't tell anyone, but one week, I didn't go and ran on the heath all on my own!"

Jenny squirmed. "I know people who did plenty of that. I once did it because I knew I'd already learnt what they were teaching. I went to the library instead, and read until my granddad came and found me."

Gwyneth stared at her in shock.

"They finally got me into a different class," Jenny continued on a shrug. "Which kind of put me at odds with the other girls. I wasn't terribly interested in going down the shops with my mates. Did it only when I needed something." She laughed. "Although I found it funny to watch them looking at boys!"

Gwyneth looked scandalized. "Well, I don't know much about that, miss." She promptly turned her attention back to the washing up.

"Gwyneth!" Jenny stopped and grabbed her hands. "Isn't there someone you like? Someone you wish you could know better?"

"I suppose..." The trailing off told more than she probably suspected. "There is one lad..."

Jenny smiled encouragingly.

"The butcher's boy. He comes by every Tuesday. Such a lovely smile on him!"

"Oh, a good smile! Anything else good about him? Character, eyes...the rest of him? Nice smile, nice bum, my mum says." She was trying to not shock Gwyneth, even with a remark her mother had once said about her father.

"Well, I have never heard the like!"

Jenny laughed, provoking laughter from Gwyneth. Obviously she'd failed to not shock her. "Well, make him a cup of tea or something and smile at him, that's a start. Catch his eye, that's an important step."

Gwyneth stared at her."I swear, it is the strangest thing, miss. You've got all the clothes and the breeding but sometimes you talk like some sort of wild thing!"

Jenny bristled a little. Compared with the girls who loved shopping and gossiping? Not on her nelly! "You should see some of my mates, or my mum's. I'm a... bit conservative compared with most of them. But maybe being a little bit wild is a good thing. It's not fair to have nothing in your life other than Mr Sneed."

Gwyneth shook her head. "Ah, now that's not fair. He's not so bad, old Sneed. He was very kind to me to take me in. Because I lost my mum and dad to the flu when I was twelve."

Jenny paled. She'd forgotten how short life was in these days. "Oh, I'm so sorry." She wanted to know if they were her only family, but she couldn't form the words. It still felt too close to losing her Great-Gran. And it made her think of her other great-grandparents.

"Thank you, miss." Gwyneth pulled herself together, as one clearly had to in this age. "But I'll be with them again, one day. Sitting with them in paradise. I should be so blessed. They're waiting for me. Maybe your great-grandparents are up there waiting for you too, miss. All three of them."

"Maybe." Jenny nodded absently. She hadn't thought much about the spiritual beliefs of her early childhood in years, although she liked the idea of something of her and her family existing on another level. Then her brain caught up with the implications of Gwyneth's statement. "Um, who told you about them?"

Gwyneth flushed and returned to the washing up – far more quickly than before. "I don't know, must've been the Doctor."

Jenny thought for a moment. "I told him that three of my great-grandparents had died and when, but when did he have the chance to tell you? And why?"

Gwyneth didn't answer. "You've been thinking about your dad lately, too, more than ever. Wondering if he's even alive."

"I s'pose so..." Jenny trailed off, trying to make sense of the moment. "How do you know all this?"

"Mr. Sneed says I think too much. I'm all alone down here. I bet you've got dozens of servants, haven't you, miss?" She laughed.

Jenny wanted to laugh, but she was too engrossed in putting this new puzzle together. "No, no servants where I'm from," she slowly admitted.

"And you've come such a long way."

That unnerved her. "What makes you think so?"

Gwyneth looked at her intently. "You're from London. I've seen London in drawings, but never like that." Her gaze became intent, yet there was a distant look – like she was distracted by her own thoughts. "All those people rushing about. Half naked, for shame. And the noise... and the metal boxes racing past... and the birds in the sky... no, they're metal as well. Metal birds with people in them. People flying? And you – you've flown so far, further than anyone! The things you've seen... the darkness... the Restorer-"

The words terrified Jenny. Gwyneth had to be psychic. There was no other explanation for her ability to know this with her lack of education. But she was more alarmed when Gwyneth staggered backwards against the shelves, looking just as terrified as Jenny suddenly felt. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, miss!" cried Gwyneth.

Swallowing her fears, Jenny tried to wave a hand non-threateningly. "S'alright... I'm not offended. Just wondering how you can know all that."

Gwyneth was near tears. "I can't help it - ever since I was a little girl. My mum said I had the sight. She told me to hide it!"

"But it's getting stronger." Both jumped at the Doctor's voice. He was standing in the doorway, Mickey behind him. "More powerful, is that right?"

Jenny wondered how long they'd been there.

"All the time, sir," Gwyneth said, unknowingly preventing such a question. "Every night. Voices in my head."

The Doctor had overheard quite a bit. Enough to figure out a way to get more answers. "You grew up on top of the rift. You're part of it. You're the key."

Mickey and Jenny exchanged a look. That sounded ominous to both of them.

"I've tried to make sense of it, sir," Gwyneth admitted, drying her tears. "Consulted with spiritualists, table wrappers, all sorts."

The Doctor nodded. "Well, that should help. You can show us what to do."

"What to do where, sir?"

"We're going to have a séance."

Jenny and Mickey realized they needed to reassess what they thought possible. The list of things they never thought they'd hear was growing longer by the minute.


	5. Talking With the Dead

**CHAPTER FIVE: TALKING WITH THE DEAD**

The entire group sat themselves around a table in Sneed's dining room. Gwyneth was composing herself at what was usually considered the head of the table. The Doctor sat to her right, then Sneed, Jenny, Mickey, and Dickens rounded out the table. Jenny had to sit next to Sneed since she felt that he would've had a apolectic fit if he had to be near Mickey. Besides, Dickens seemed to hold a measure of respect for Mickey, which raised him in her estimation.

"This is how Madam Mortlock summons those from the Land of Mists. Down in Mid Town," Gwyneth explained. She started to get a little excited over being able to lead, and smiled. "Come. We must all join hands."

Dickens shook his head. "I can't take part in this," he declared, getting up.

The Doctor almost snorted. "Humbug? Come on, open mind."

"This is precisely the sort of cheap mummery I try to un-mask. Séances? Nothing but luminous tambourines and a squeeze box concealed between the knees. This girl knows nothing."

Jenny scowled at him. Good author he was, but his people skills right now left a lot to be desired. Mickey's narrowed eyes told her he was thinking along similar lines.

"Now, don't antagonize her," the Doctor insisted. "I love a happy medium."

Mickey groaned. "I can't believe you just said that."

The Doctor ignored Mickey, and Jenny – who swallowed her own noise. "Come on, we might need you." Dickens frowned at him, but sat down again and joined hands. "Good man," the Doctor praised. "Now, Gwyneth. Reach out."

Gwyneth took a deep breath, steadying herself as she spoke. She looked up with her eyes. "Speak to us. Are you there? Spirits?"

Dickens rolled his eyes. Jenny was glad that Gwyneth wasn't paying attention to anything other than her concentration.

"Come," Gwyneth called out. "Speak to us that we may relieve your burden."

She suddenly raised her eyes to the ceiling. Murmuring came into the room.

Mickey felt chilled. "Can you hear that?"

"Nothing can happen," Dickens declared, as though not hearing the noises. "This is sheer folly."

Jenny shook her head. "Look at her," she insisted quietly.

"I feel them. I feel them!" As Gwyneth spoke, the blue gas – creatures, Jenny and Mickey now knew – began to fill the ceiling above. Her eyes were fixed on the sight.

Mickey gulped. "What're they saying?"

"They can't get through the rift. Gwyneth, it's not controlling you, you're controlling it," the Doctor soothed. "Now look deep. Allow them through."

"I can't!"

Jenny opened her mouth to beg her to stop then, but the Doctor was too quick. "Yes you can. Just believe it. I have faith in you, Gwyneth. Make the link."

Gwyneth looked pained to Jenny and Mickey's eyes. Then, as suddenly as the murmurs appeared, she closed her eyes and lowered her head. Suddenly she lifted her gaze and opened her eyes, staring sightlessly behind Jenny. "Yes."

Three gaseous figures – humanoid in shape – appeared behind her. Dickens' mouth dropped open. So did Jenny and Mickey's.

"Great God," whispered Sneed. "Spirits from the other side!"

"The other side of the universe," the Doctor muttered with a slight smile. He didn't recognize the exact people, but he had a sensation that he knew their kind. He just couldn't put his finger on it yet.

Jenny and Mickey looked at each other. He recognized them?!

"Pity us," the creatures begged in a medely of child-like voices. "Pity the Gelth. There is so little time, help us." Their voices were filled with agony and despair. And Gwyneth's mouth moved with their words.

If not for the requirements of the séance, the Doctor would've stood to address them. Especially since he knew their species. "What do you want us to do?"

"The rift. Take the girl to the rift. Make the bridge."

Jenny shuddered. She didn't like the sound of that.

"What for?" The Doctor didn't feel worried, except for what had happened to the Gelth.

"We are so very few. The last of our kind. We face extinction." Agony rained from the tone.

The Doctor tried to make eye contact, even though they seemed to gaze without focus. "Why, what happened?"

"Once we had a physical form like you. But then the war came."

"War?" Dickens interjected. "What war?"

"The Time War."

Jenny and Mickey looked right at the Doctor, who paled as he lowered his gaze, unable to look at the Gelth. The dots connected in their heads – that was the war that had cost him his planet, his people. This had to cut deep.

"The whole universe convulsed," the Gelth continued, seeming unaware of the torment they were causing one member of the room. "The Time War raged invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms. Our bodies wasted away. We're trapped in this gaseous state."

The Doctor took a deep breath. "So that's why you need the corpses."

"We want to stand tall. To feel the sunlight. To live again. We need a physical form, and your dead are abandoned. They're going to waste, give them to us!"

Mickey shivered. "But we can't!"

The Doctor fixed a gaze on him. "Why not?"

The young man squirmed. "It's not... I mean, it's not..." He couldn't find the words to explain his reluctance.

"Not decent? Not polite? It could save their lives." The Doctor knew he would win the staring match with Mickey.

Jenny's eyes flicked back to the Gelth. Was there more to the story? Her instincts were flaring again, but it was something even harder to explain than the perceptions she had of others.

"Open the rift. Let the Gelth through. We're dying. Help us. Pity the Gelth!" They disappeared into a lamp and Gwyneth instantly collapsed against the table.

Jenny shot up. "Gwyneth!" Mickey followed her in checking on the woman.

"All true," Dickens breathed.

Jenny drew Gwyneth against her and felt for a pulse. She heaved in relief. "Heartbeat's a bit fast, but she's alive."

"It's all true," Dickens muttered.

The Doctor was silent, thinking about what had to happen next. He suspected that his companions would need a little explanation before they would come even close to accepting the idea.

/=/=/=/

In Sneed's drawing room, Jenny was mopping Gwyneth's forehead as she lay asleep on a couch. Mickey and the Doctor stood nearby, the former eyeing the latter – who was leaning against the wall behind Jenny – with concern. "You're not really going to make her do that, are you? How do we know they're telling the truth?"

"I saw the Gelth suffering in the Time War."

Mickey wanted to ask further, but the haunted and tight look he saw encouraged him to keep his mouth shut.

Slowly, Gwyneth's eyes opened, and she fidgeted as awareness kicked in.

"It's alright," Jenny soothed. "You just sleep."

"But my angels, miss," Gwyneth interrupted. "They came, didn't they? They need me?"

The Doctor stepped forward. "They do need you, Gwyneth. You're their only chance of survival."

Jenny flashed an angry glare that rivaled her mother for intensity. "Leave her alone," she growled. "She's exhausted and she's not fighting your battles. Don't you dare make her!"

The Doctor leaned his head back and sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought.

Jenny turned her attention back to Gwyneth, ready with a cup of hot sweet tea. "Here. Drink this."

Sneed spoke up from his corner. "Well, what did you say, Doctor? Explain it again. What are they?"

"Aliens."

The undertaker stared. "Like... foreigners, you mean?"

"Pretty foreign, yeah. From up there." He pointed skywards.

Sneed looked about twenty steps beyond confused. "Brecon?"

The Doctor shrugged, not inclined to explain it more than necessary. "Close. They've been trying to get through from Brecon to Cardiff but the road's blocked. Only a few can get through and even then they're weak. They can only test drive the bodies for so long, then they have to revert to gas and hide in the pipes."

"Which is why they need the girl," Dickens mused while he held the glass of wine he had been nursing since they entered the room. He had also shed his jacket.

Mickey whirled on the Doctor. "They're not having her!"

"But she can help," the Doctor insisted. "Living on the rift, she's become part of it. She can open it up, make a bridge and let them through."

Dickens marveled, "Incredible. Ghosts that are not ghosts but beings from another world who can only exist in our world by inhabiting cadavers."

"Good system. It might work."

Anything further was halted when Mickey, tossing all cover aside, stood in front of the Doctor like an avenging angel. "You're seriously going to let them run around inside dead people?"

The Doctor blinked at her. "Why not? It's like recycling."

Mickey shook his head while Jenny was silent, thinking about what to say. He interjected, "Seriously though, you can't."

"Seriously though, I can."

"It's just... wrong!" Mickey tried to find the words to explain his reservations. "Those bodies were living people! Aren't we supposed to respect them even in death?"

"Do you carry a donor card?"

The sharp retort left Mickey momentarily speechless. "What's that got to do with it?!"

"It's different, that's what you're thinking. It's a different morality. Get used to it or go home."

"They chose to give parts of them to help others. These people don't get a choice, and neither do their families! It's a matter of respect!"

The Doctor sighed and softened his tone. "You heard what they said, time's short. I can't worry about a few corpses when the last of the Gelth could be dying."

"What if they're not telling the whole story?" The room looked at Jenny as she found her voice, her thoughts. "What does history say about this, Doctor? Is this really how things are supposed to go? Can what you're saying really happen? _Should_ it?"

"Don't I get a say, miss?" The room turned to look at Gwyneth, who sat up fully. "I see what you're worried about, miss. You're scared about what could happen if the spirits are not angels, and you want to protect people. No one's ever wanted to protect me, so that's nice. You're the first person who hasn't looked at me and thought I'm stupid."

Mickey's face fell. He'd forgotten how hard a time women had in getting an education. His own ancestors had a lot in common with Gwyneth and the Welsh in general.

"Things might be very different where you're from," Gwyneth allowed. "But here and now, I know my own mind. And the angels need me. Doctor, what do I have to do?"

The Doctor paused a moment, knowing he had to make sure it was truly her choice. "You don't _have_ to do anything."

"They've been singing to me since I was a child," Gwyneth declared. "Sent by my mum on a holy mission. So tell me."

The Doctor smiled at her. Holy mission? Well, if that comforted her she could believe it. "We need to find the rift." He turned toward Sneed and Dickens, focusing more on the owner. "This house is on a weak spot, so there must be a spot that's weaker than any other. Mr. Sneed. What's the weakest part of this house: the place where most of the ghosts have been seen?"

The answer came promptly. "That would be... the Morgue."

Jenny rolled her eyes and groaned. "How did I know you were going to say that?"

Everyone looked at her like she wasn't helping. Except Mickey, who sent the tiniest and briefest smile possible her way. He understood she felt weird over this. He certainly did. "Wasn't a chance you were going to say gazebo, was that?" he added defeatedly.

/=/=/=/

With the men all wearing their jackets and Jenny her cloak, Sneed turned his key and they all trouped into the Morgue, led by the Doctor. He looked around. Corpses covered in white sheets were on nearly every table, one to each. It had floors that looked unfinished to Jenny and Mickey's modern eyes, and walls so dark they looked like faded black. "Talk about Bleak House."

It didn't even get a reaction from Dickens. And he wrote it.

Mickey shook his head. "The thing is, Doctor – the Gelth don't succeed. 'Cause I know they don't. I know for a fact there weren't corpses walking around in 1869. That's hard to conceal from the history books."

The Doctor fixed a stare on him. "Time's in flux. It's changing every second. Your cozy little world could be rewritten like that." He clicked his fingers. "Nothing is safe. Remember that. _Nothing_."

"Not even our births?" Jenny demanded. "Doesn't that mean my family could be wiped out before I'm even born? I know about paradoxes, but what could go wrong?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. It wasn't a possibility he wanted to think about. How had she figured out it could happen? His musing was interrupted by Dickens noting, "Doctor – I think the room is getting colder."

"Here they come," Mickey muttered, shivering from a mixture of emotions. They watched as the Gelth flooded into the room. More of them this time.

One positioned itself in an archway. In the voice of a young female child, it called out. "You have come to help! Praise the Doctor! Praise him!"

"Promise you won't hurt her!" cried Jenny and Mickey.

"Hurry!" the voice begged. "Please. So little time. Pity the Gelth."

"I'll take you somewhere else after the transfer," the Doctor announced. "Somewhere you can build proper bodies. This isn't a permanent solution, alright?"

Jenny and Mickey flinched. Neither felt easy about this, she more so.

"My angels," Gwyneth breathed. "I can help them live."

The Doctor nodded. No going back. "Okay, where's the weak point?"

"Here," the child-like voice cried, "beneath the arch."

Gwyneth walked herself there. "Beneath the arch," she repeated.

Jenny rushed forward, stopping her just short of being underneath. "You don't have to do this," she pleaded. "So much could go wrong."

With a suddenly happy smile, Gwyneth placed her hands on Jenny's cheeks. "I must help my angels. And do not fret, Jenny. Your family will be reunited, when you most desperately want it, Restorer."

Jenny staggered backwards, shocked. Mickey took her in his arms, trying to comfort her.

As Gwyneth moved fully under the arch, the Gelth cried, "Establish the bridge, reach out to the Void, let us through!"

"Yes. I can see you!" Gwyneth's eyes shone like she'd found her calling and her hands drifted a little away from her sides. "I can see you! Come!"

"Bridgehead establishing." The Gelth's words provoked Mickey and Jenny to clutch each other.

"Come!" called Gwyneth. "Come to me! Come to this world, poor lost souls!"

"It is begun! The bridge is made!" Gwyneth's body went stiff. "She has given herself to the Gelth!" Her mouth opened and more Gelth poured out of the glowing opening. Her eyes lifted slightly to the ceiling.

The five other people ducked instinctively as the creatures flowed throughout the room. Dickens shuddered. "There's rather a lot of them, eh?"

"The bridge is open. We descend." The speaking figure suddenly turned demonic and it turned from blue to red. "The Gelth will come through in force," it declared triumphantly.

The Doctor's eyes widened as Dickens exclaimed, "You said that you were _few_ in number!"

"A few billion. And all of us in need of corpses." One of the bodies in the room removed its cover, showing a bearded male as it sat upright.

Sneed moved toward his servant, not quite desperate but closing in on panic. "Gwyneth... stop this! Listen to your master! This has gone far enough. Stop dabbling, child, leave these things alone. I beg of you-"

Jenny and Mickey spotted the corpse coming up behind him. "Mr. Sneed! Get back!"

But it was too late. The male corpse grabbed Sneed and held him still to snap his neck. Another of the Gelth flew into his body through his mouth. Sneed's body sank to its knees. The Doctor, Jenny, Mickey and Dickens leaped back. Dickens was separated from them. Sneed suddenly looked up at the trio through blank, dead eyes.

"I think it's gone a little bit wrong," the Doctor said.

"You think?!" Jenny snapped, her mother's Chiswick tone coming out in force.

"I have joined the legions of the Gelth," the Gelth in Sneed's body said in his voice. "Come. March with us."

"No!" Dickens screamed as Sneed's corpse rose and his companion advanced on the Doctor, Jenny, and Mickey.

"We need bodies," the Gelth said, more voices rising to join as they backed the trio towards a dungeon gate. "All of you. Dead. The human race. Dead."

"Gwyneth, stop them!" the Doctor shouted. "Send them back! Now!"

She didn't seem to hear.

"Three more bodies," the demon Gelth announced. "Make them vessels for the Gelth."

Dickens shook his head hard. "I- I can't! I'm sorry!" It slowly dawned on him that the corpses were ignoring him. "This new world of yours is too much for me!"

The Doctor looked behind him, spotting the dungeon gate. He swiftly pushed Jenny and Mickey in there with him and slammed it shut. He locked it behind them, sealing them in there.

"It's too much for me! I'm so-" Dickens rushed from the Morgue as one of the Gelth screeched and swooped at him.

The corpses reached to get in the dungeon, rattling the door. But unable to reach the trio.

"Give yourself to glory," the voice cried as the Gelth stared at them, unable to reach them yet. "Sacrifice your lives for the Gelth."

"I trusted you. I pitied you!" the Doctor shouted back.

Jenny let out a strangled oath. Mickey swallowed his own.

"We don't want your pity! We want this world and all its flesh." The rattling grew worse.

"Not while I'm alive," the Doctor declared.

Jenny and Mickey both knew those were famous last words. It still didn't prepare them to hear, "Then live no more."

/=/=/=/

Dickens ran out of the room, down the hall and hurriedly opened the door. He panted in relief. But blue gas seeped around the door and formed into one of the creatures. It followed him out to the street where he kept running.


	6. An Unsung Heroine

**CHAPTER SIX: AN UNSUNG HEROINE**

The trio flattened themselves against the dungeon wall, hoping the gate kept the Gelth out. So far it seemed they needed the host body to be dead already, which possibly bought them a little time. Or so the Doctor hoped. He wasn't counting on them _not_ figuring out how to inhabit a still living body.

"But we can't die," Mickey insisted after a long moment, looking at the Doctor for reassurance. "Tell me we can't! We haven't even been born yet, it's impossible for us to die! Isn't it?!"

The Doctor looked at the young man with the saddest eyes he'd felt since the Time War had ended and he was thrown outside it. "I'm sorry."

/=/=/=/

Dickens kept running toward one of the archways, praying for a miracle.

Suddenly the Gelth stopped and screamed.

He turned, and saw the Gelth was frozen in place.

"Failing!" it cried in the child-like voice. "Atmosphere hostile!" It dived into one of the street lamps.

Dickens' mind worked quickly. "Gas. The gas!" he cried in triumph, and hurried as quickly as he could back to Sneed's.

/=/=/=/

Jenny shook her head, trying to piece together the puzzle. "But if it's 1869, how can we die now? That'd mean that-"

"Time isn't a straight line," the Doctor finished her sentence, and silencing them both. "It can twist into any shape. You can be born in the 20th century and die in the 19th and it's all my fault. I brought you here." His voice dropped. He didn't want to think about his own death, but the idea of hers was hitting him far harder than he'd thought possible. And he didn't know why. It had never affected him like this before.

Jenny touched his arm. "It's not your fault. We wanted to come."

Mickey nodded, even as he sank in his shoes. "Yeah." He'd chosen it both times. More so the second, but still.

The Doctor forced his horror about dying forward, not wanting to admit how much the Earthgirl had come to mean to him in such a short time. "What about me? I saw the fall of Troy! World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party. Now I'm going to die in a dungeon! In _Cardiff_!"

Jenny could think of worse places to die, despite noting the Doctor's odd tone. She just didn't want to think about them. Although that Boston Tea Party thing puzzled her. What was that event again?

"It's not just dying," Mickey hissed. "We'll become one of them!"

/=/=/=/

Dickens burst back into Sneed's house. He went to the same lamp the Doctor had been near when they had arrived, and turned the gas lamps off. Then he turned up the gas, letting it out into the open. Coughing, he held a handkerchief to his mouth to try and stop himself choking on the unlit town gas. He hurried toward the Morgue, doing the same to each lamp he encountered.

/=/=/=/

Jenny took a steadying breath. "Well, I'm not going down without a fight! These creatures are made of gas. There has to be something we can do to stop them!"

Mickey found a tiny smile. "I hope you're right."

The Doctor smiled at Jenny and took her hand. "I'm so glad I met you. Both of you," he added, as Mickey flashed a brief glare his way.

Jenny and Mickey exchanged a quick look. They nodded. "Us, too," they said.

"Doctor! Doctor!" Dickens cried as he ran into the room, his handkerchief off his mouth so he could talk. He kept a ways from the corpses, but gesticulated wildly. "Turn _off_ the flame, turn _up_ the gas! Now fill the room, all of it, now!"

"What're you doing?" shouted Mickey.

"Turn it all on!" he continued, moving to one of the lamps. "Gas the place!" It turned off, but the smell of gas started filling the room.

The Doctor beamed. "Brilliant. Gas!" he cried as he looked around the tiny space.

Mickey's eyes widened. "What, so we choke to death instead?!"

"Am I correct, Doctor?" Dickens called out. "These creatures are gaseous!" He covered his mouth, needing the cushion.

The Doctor nodded, excitement mounting. "Fill the room with gas, it'll draw them out of the hosts. Suck them into the air like poison from a wound!"

The Gelth corpses turned, groaning. They started toward Dickens, who stood by the wall near the lamp.

"I hope... oh, Lord." Dickens knew his panic was in his voice, especially as he saw the two corpses who started the night's madness joined them. "I hope that this theory will be validated... soon. If not immediately."

"Plenty more!" The Doctor grabbed a gas pipe hanging against the wall and ripped it open.

The corpses all stopped, their heads turning upward. Screaming erupted as the creatures fled the bodies. The wait until the bodies started collapsing was long.

"It's working," the author declared. Even though the demonic gas still flowed around Gwyneth and the blue ones flowed across the ceiling.

Instantly, the Doctor freed himself and his companions. He ignored their sudden coughing fits as they hunted for handkerchiefs. "Gwyneth! Send them back! They lied, they're not angels."

Her arms flopped to her sides, and her body went limp, leaning to the left. "Liars." The tone was so simple, so flat, that it wasn't clear if Gwyneth understood him or was still there in any way.

The Doctor beseeched her regardless, approaching carefully. "Look at me. If your mother and father could look down and see this, they'd tell you the same. They'd give you the strength. Now send them back!"

Mickey and Jenny covered their mouths. Her breathing eased, his not so much. "Can't breathe."

"Charles, get them out," the Doctor demanded.

Mickey went toward Dickens, glad to be led out, but Jenny moved toward Gwyneth. "I'm not leaving her!"

"They're too strong."

She was still there, the Doctor realized, but fading fast. "Remember that world you saw? Jenny and Mickey's world? All those people - none of it will exist unless you send them back through the rift."

"I can't send them back," Gwyneth said sadly, but with a firmness that had been lacking in her earlier – even when she wanted to help her 'angels.' "But I can hold them. Hold them in this place, hold them here. Get out." Her hand went to her apron pocket and she took out a box of matches.

Jenny gasped. "Oh my god! Gwyneth!"

****"Leave this place!" Gwyneth cried.

The Doctor grabbed Jenny's shoulders and pushed her toward Dickens. "Jenny, Mickey, get out, go now, I won't leave her while she's still in danger, now go!"

Dickens led the two out of the Morgue. Mickey almost had to drag Jenny away by her hand.

The Doctor turned and held his hand out for the matches. "Now give that to me."

Gwyneth didn't answer. She was stock still, looking like she was waiting.

Dickens led Jenny and Mickey through the hall. "This way!"

Not that weren't right at his side the whole time. Fear was giving Mickey the strength to keep going even as he tried to cover his face. Jenny had nothing to protect her face. She wondered why she was managing better than the others as they fled the house.

/=/=/=/

The Doctor placed his fingers on Gwyneth's neck, feeling for a pulse. His face fell. "I'm sorry." He placed a kiss on her forehead, like he'd sensed Jenny's granddad and great-granddad did for her. "Thank you," he whispered, and ran from the Morgue.

As soon as he left, Gwyneth opened the box and slowly drew out a match. She looked up at the flying blue creatures she had called angels. The whispers began again, this time more panicked than ever. She looked up and smiled ever so slightly.

In the hall, the Doctor's feet blazed a trail.

Gwyneth gave that Mona Lisa smile again and lit the match.

The room exploded.

/=/=/=/

Jenny and Mickey still ran with Dickens. For Jenny, it felt like that day outside Hendrick's again. Only this time, she knew what was coming. Since she could breathe freely, she clasped her hands together, ready to pray for the Doctor's safely – despite not praying since she was little.

The Doctor practically dived out of the doorway just as the whole house went up in flames. It sent him flying.

Jenny, Mickey, and Dickens stared at shock. At first they couldn't see the Doctor, and then he landed near them, not breathing very heavily at all.

Suspecting what had happened, Jenny focused her attention on that detail as she led the others back to the Doctor's side despite the rubble still falling. "Why aren't you panting? Why could you handle those gases?"

"Respiratory bypass," he explained, not caring that they had an audience. "It allows me breathe without taking a breath for several hours even under toxic conditions."

Mickey looked at the Doctor. "Gwyneth made that explosion, didn't she?"

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry. She closed the rift."

Dickens closed his eyes. "At such a cost. The poor child."

Neither Jenny nor Mickey looked away from the Doctor. "Bypass?" Jenny asked scathingly. "What the hell else can you do that a mere human can't?! And where's Gwyneth?!"

He sighed. She was reacting to grief by sinking into her anger, he realised. Seemed like a learned defence mechanism. "I did try, but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."

Mickey blinked. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor's eyes were haunted. Memories of past companions sacrificing themselves for him floated across his mind. So many that it took several seconds before he could talk again. "I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch."

"Wait," Jenny insisted, snapping out of her anger and focusing on the new mystery. "But... she can't have, she spoke to us. She helped us – she saved us. How could she have done that?"

"I'd like to know that, too!" Mickey agreed.

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Dickens answered with a measure of calm, looking at them. "Even for you, Doctor," he added, turning to look again at the inferno before them.

The other humans turned to gaze at the burning house. The Doctor however kept looking at Dickens, wondering how much the man suspected about him.

"She saved the world," Mickey whispered. "A servant girl. No one will ever know." He felt horrible. "How many people have saved lives and no one knows their names to honour their sacrifice? How many won't be honoured merely because of their skin tone or their gender?!"

The Doctor didn't answer. There was no answer that could comfort under the circumstances.

/=/=/=/

In the alleyway, the four walked back to the TARDIS. Jenny and Mickey wondered how the Doctor intended to explain it away to Dickens.

The Doctor fumbled with his keys. "Right then, Charlie-boy, I've just got to go into my um... shed. Won't be long!"

Jenny rolled her eyes as the Doctor slid the key in the lock. "Sorry," she told Dickens. "He needs some manners. We're still trying to teach him."

"Oi!" the Doctor protested.

Mickey found a snort within him despite his mood. He looked at the author. "What're you going to do now?"

Dickens answered right away, either having already thought it out or come to the conclusion right then. He sounded like a reborn man. "I shall take the mail coach back to London. Quite literally post-haste. This is no time for me to be on my own."

The Doctor stopped his actions, his attention captured.

"I shall spend Christmas with my family and make amends to them. After all I've learned tonight, there can be nothing more vital."

The Doctor grinned. "You've cheered up!"

The enthusiasm was infectious. "Exceedingly!" Dickens was grinning as much. "This morning, I thought I knew everything in the world and now I know I've just started! All these huge and wonderful notions, Doctor! I'm inspired. I must write about them!"

Jenny and Mickey glanced at each other. "Do you think that's wise?" she asked. "Your readers might not be ready for that."

He nodded, gesticulating occasionally as he expressed his thoughts. "I shall be subtle at first. The Mystery of Edwin Drood still lacks an ending. Perhaps the killer was not the boy's uncle. Perhaps he was not of this earth. The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the Blue Elementals. I can spread the word! Tell the truth!"

The Doctor just kept grinning, his voice quiet but sincere. "Good luck with it. Nice to meet you." He shook Dickens' hand. "Fantastic." He turned back to the TARDIS door.

Mickey shook Dickens hand. "It's been an honour, sir."

The author nodded, looking thoughtfully at him. "You are quite the person, Mr. Smith. I have not seen the like before. You have shown so much strength of character in standing up for yourself and your race. You have inspired me to continue and end the struggle for inequality irrespective of persons."

The young man nodded. What could he say even if he could speak? There were still struggles even in his own time. But it proved he was held in high esteem by one of the most respected authors of all time.

Jenny smiled and grasped the author's hands. "Bye, then. And, thanks. I am honoured to meet one of my literary heroes." She thought a moment about giving his cheek a kiss, but felt it would be too modern for him to take. Besides, she was not a wild thing.

Dickens blinked, unable to resist smiling back. "Thank you, child. You, too, are extraordinary. Do not let anyone try to take that from you." Then he frowned. "But, I don't understand – in what way is this goodbye? Where are you going?"

The Doctor thought a moment, then shrugged. "You'll see. In the shed." He opened the door of the TARDIS just slightly.

Jenny, her hands still in Dickens', eyed his reaction. How wise was this?

"Oh, my soul, Doctor," the author breathed, pondering the strange man before him. "It's one riddle after another with you. But after all these revelations, there's one mystery you still haven't explained. Answer me this – who are you?"

The Doctor paused a long moment. "Just a friend. Passing through." His gave his trademark grin, the one he used when he didn't want to explain anything.

Mickey suppressed a smirk. Those cryptic answers were going to be the alien's undoing someday, he just knew it.

"But you have such knowledge of future times." Dickens hesitated for a moment. "I don't wish to impose on you, but I must ask you. My books. Doctor – do they last?"

The Doctor's manic grin returned full force. "Oh, yes!"

Dickens looked like he wanted to believe it. "For how long?"

"Forever!"

Jenny and Mickey noticed that Dickens tried to look pleased and modest at the same time. He had no idea that each emotion was cycling after the other.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Right. Shed. Come on, Jenny, Mickey..."

They both turned to the door, although listening the whole time. They weren't surprised to hear Dickens blurt, "In – in the box? All three of you?"

The Doctor suppressed a smirk. "Down boy. See ya!" He entered the TARDIS after his companions, and shut the door.

Mickey frowned. "Doesn't that change history if he writes about blue ghosts?"

The Doctor went right to the scanner. "In a week's time it's 1870, and that's the year he dies."

Jenny gasped, covering her mouth. Mickey's mouth went slack.

He looked up at them with sad eyes. "Sorry. He'll never get to tell his story."

Jenny and Mickey joined him at the screen. They could see Dickens was still standing outside, trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

"That's so sad," Jenny murmured. "He was so nice. And he dies just when he turned his life around, was making amends to his family." She thought of Gwyneth, and her promise about the future. She'd got all those things right about how the world was in her time. Could she be right about that?

"But in your time, he was already dead!" the Doctor said. "We've brought him back to life!" He grinned at the screen. "He's more alive now than he's ever been, old Charlie-boy. Let's give him one last surprise." He drew down the main lever and the engines started.

Jenny and Mickey couldn't help but smile as they watched Dickens' face when the TARDIS disappeared before his eyes.

The blue box the Doctor called a shed began to make the strangest mechanical noises Dickens had ever heard. Soon it vanished before his astonished eyes, leaving odd noises as he left..

He laughed, and walked away. His mood was more cheerful than it had any right to be given the events of the evening.

He walked through the streets, the occasional coach passing by. Somewhere off in the near distance a choir was singing Hark the Herald Angels.

"Merry Christmas, sir," a man said as he passed him.

"Merry Christmas to you," Dickens called back. "God bless us, every one!"

/=/=/=/

Meanwhile, the TARDIS occupants imagined him walking away, laughing because that was the best reaction to all the horrors and wonders of the night.

The Doctor turned his grin on them when the screen went blank. "So...where to next?"

Jenny suddenly felt her energy flag. "I don't know about you two, but I feel like some sleep. Can we revisit the question after I've had some winks?"

That made the Doctor grin even wider. An old phrase. Anyone could really tell that Wilfred Mott was her great-granddad.

Mickey tried to stretch, but the costume was a bit constricting. "Yeah, that sounds lovely right now." He went off towards the room the TARDIS had given him. "Good night." He offered an arm to Jenny.

She took it. "Good night, Doctor."

The Doctor wasn't thrilled that they had just vetoed any immediate adventures, but he knew that humans needed more rest than his species ever did. They had no idea how lucky they were that they could sleep without the nightmares he had. "Good night. No funny business!"

Jenny, without looking behind her, raised her hand in a rude gesture. She was too tired to be thinking of such mischief, thank you very much! "Remember what I said earlier, the promise we made?!" She turned her head slightly as she left the room, calling over her shoulder, "Oi, and one day you're going to explain to us what you were doing helping the Americans with their bloody little act of rebellion!"

The Doctor suppressed a laugh. He'd made the right decision asking them to join him. He turned his attention to the repairs, thinking about where he'd like to go next with them. He certainly could grant them several adventures before he had to return them home, right?

TO BE CONTINUED IN "Aliens of London"


End file.
